And it almost seems for the moment as if Nature herself stood still and listened, and looked on. The genial midday sun is slowly melting the snow on pine trees and rocks; one by one the glistening tiny crystals blink and vanish under the warmth of the kiss; the hard, white road darkens under the thaw and slowly a thin covering of water spreads over the icy crust of the lakes. Napoleon tells Colonel Mallet to order the men to lower their arms. Mallet protests, but Napoleon reiterates the command, more peremptorily this time, and Mallet must obey. Then at the head of his old chasseurs, thus practically disarmed, the Emperor--and he is every inch an Emperor now--walks straight up to Delessart's opposing troops. Hot-headed St. Genis cries: "Here he is!--Fire, in Heaven's name!" But the sapeurs--the old regiment in which Napoleon had served as a young lieutenant in those glorious olden days--are now as pale as death, their knees shake under them, their arms tremble in their hands. At ten paces away from the foremost ranks Napoleon halts: "Soldiers," he cries loudly. "Here I am! your Emperor, do you know me?" Again he advances and with a calm gesture throws open his well-worn grey redingote. "Fire!" cries St. Genis in mad exasperation. "Fire!" commands Delessart in a voice rendered shaky with overmastering emotion. Silence reigns supreme. Napoleon still advances, step by step, his redingote thrown open, his broad chest challenging the first bullet which would dare to end the bold, adventurous, daring life. "Is there one of you soldiers here who wants to shoot his Emperor? If there is, here I am! Fire!" Which of these soldiers who have served under him at Jena and Austerlitz could resist such a call. His voice has lost nothing yet of its charm, his personality nothing of its magic. Ambitious, ruthless, selfish he may be, but to the army, a friend, a comrade as well as a god. Suddenly the silence is broken. Shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" rend the air, they echo down the narrow valley, re-echo from hill to hill and reverberate upon the pine-clad heights of Taillefer. Broken are the ranks, white cockades fly in every direction, tricolours appear in their hundreds everywhere. Shakos are waved on the points of the bayonets, and always, always that cry: "Vive l'Empereur!" Sapeurs and infantrymen crowd around the little man in the worn grey redingote, and he with that rough familiarity which bound all soldiers' hearts to him, seizes an old sergeant by the ends of his long moustache: "So, you old dog," he says, "you were going to shoot your Emperor, were you?" "Not me," replies the man with a growl. "Look at our guns. Not one of them was loaded." Delessart, in despair yet shaken to the heart, his eyes swimming in tears, offers his sword to Napoleon, whereupon the Emperor grasps his hand in friendship and comforts him with a few inspiring words.